one and a half minutes
by fiesa
Summary: It's okay to be a little broken. 38 drabbles, episode tags and others. Teresa Lisbon, Patrick Jane.


**one and a half minutes**

_Summary: It's okay to be a little broken. 38 drabbles, episode tags and others. Teresa Lisbon, Patrick Jane._

_Set: Throughout season 1-3_

_Warning: This is a mixture of short stories/episode tags I wrote while watching the entire three first Mentalist seasons. Some of them are episode tags, some of them completely unrelated. There is no chronology and no relation between the single stories. I'm sorry but I didn't write down the episodes which were tagged. I guess you'll know which ones of the drabbles are post-episode and which ones are not. _

_Disclaimer: Standards apply. Summary from the song by Bon Jovi, Everybody's Broken._

* * *

**01 - Cowboy Dreams**

"I hate it when they say thank you," Patrick mumbled.

Rigsby perked up, indignant. "But why?"

Jane had just opened his mouth to give a flippant – and, of course, dismissive – answer, when both heard Lisbon snort from where she stood behind them. So he turned to look at her instead and found her ignoring his gaze completely. She was looking at her team, instead.

"He likes to be the lone wolf."

"Excuse me?" Grace van Pelt inquired and Lisbon grinned at her.

"_Who was the masked man who just saved me? I never got to say thank you._"

Grace smiled and Rigsby grinned, and Cho frowned in his _I-know-this-is-funny-but-you-won't-catch-me-smilin g_-way. Patrick closed his mouth again and eyed his partner, a brow quirked up. She smirked at him, and her message was entirely clear. How the hell, he wondered, could she read him so easily when he had done everything to perfect his mask since they first had met?

* * *

**02 - Road**

She has known the stretch of the road for long enough to hold her teeth tightly pressed together. Still, the way Patrick Jane speeds down the stretch, every bump and every hole seem to send a jolt of pain from her head right down her spine.

"We'll be there soon."

Somehow, his cheerful tone doesn't help to disperse her headache.

Teresa Lisbon closes her eyes and tries to blend out everything around her.

"Hey."

"What?" She snaps, her eyes opening again. Jane isn't even looking at her but a bottle of water falls into her lap.

"There's Tylenol in the glove compartment."

"I don't need it."

"Maybe you don't _want_ it but right now, you _need_ it."

The medication doesn't kick in immediately but she notices Jane has started driving more carefully now. Leaning back into the passenger seat, she closes her eyes again and waits for the pain to abate.

* * *

**03 - Shadows**

She can see the ghosts' shadows behind Jane.

They are there wherever he goes, whatever he does. They don't ever leave. They linger in the back of his eyes, those dark, deep, endlessly blue eyes. They stand behind him, they resound in his voice. Whatever he does, says or thinks, they are there. It is like he isn't the person she knows – _Patrick Jane - _but a shadow of a person he was to those two. They keep him going and weight him down and she cares for him enough to know he needs them. Without them everything he does becomes meaningless.

But she also loves him enough to wish they would finally let go of him.

* * *

**04 - Contrasts**

Suddenly, he sees it. It breaks through his desperation like a massive wave of water that clears away all the debris, all the doubts. This woman: hard-core CBI leader, cop, smart ass. This woman who lets nobody close enough to get to know her. This woman – Teresa Lisbon – who pretends to care for nobody and nothing and who still cares for everyone: she cares for him, too. And he cannot fight her anymore.

He doesn't think he ever saw a picture more beautiful since his family died than the one of the small woman, barely 1.60 meters, holding the tall girl in her arms. And she seemed like the only person able to calm Maya, to soothe the girl's pain and terror. She had something that made her cling to her, hold her like there was nothing else left in this world and like she would shatter any minute now.

They weren't so different, the girl and he.

* * *

**05 - Promises, Broken**

He promises her.

He promises her the world and she does not believe one word because everything on him – from his bright smile down to his immaculately clean shoes – is so tightly controlled she knows it is fake. Complete sham. An act, designed to fool her and everybody else, but her foremost.

He is one great lie that calls himself Patrick Jane and smiles at her and promises things he never will keep.

And worst is that he knows he won't.

* * *

**06 - Rejection**

Her fragile form in his arms felt good.

And he didn't think he had even seen her cry before but she seemed so desperate he felt terrible for not being able to help her.

Of course, she made him leave, almost throwing him out of her apartment – she probably would have, had she had the strength – and the only thing he saw for the rest of the night were her desperate eyes and the fear in her face. She had said it, and now he couldn't stop.

_I don't want you in my head, Jane. _

* * *

**07 - Beauty**

There is beauty in her fierceness, in the way she lets him do what he wants to do, apologizes for his behavior and then gets onto him for it.

There is beauty in her anger, in her devotion, in her commitment and even in her loneliness and he finds he does not want to look away anymore. But he knows he can't allow himself to look. The smiling red face above his bed reminds him again and again.

* * *

**08 - Small, Significant**

"I can't do this."

How had he feared to hear these words, had desperately wished never to have to hear them. And he still loved her even as she stepped out of his arms, her eyes full of tears.

"I can't do this, Patrick. How am I supposed to help you when I'm too messed up myself?"

The answer was there, suddenly, just popped into his head straight from his heart and he wondered how he hadn't understood it much, much earlier. He pulled her back into the embrace.

"You're not supposed to fix me," he whispered into her hair and felt her tremble. "You're supposed to stay with me."

* * *

**09 - Phantom Pain**

His tongue is sharp.

Teresa is used to it – hell, she is similar in that way – but sometimes, it hurts more than she thinks it should. He smiles and it hurts. The pain is sharp and clear and blood-red – as he mocks her, her life, her work, her ideals and her beliefs. She wants to cry, right then. She wants to but she puts on her fieriest expression and her fiercest mask and glares at Jane until he leaves her office, still grinning and oblivious to what he has caused. She feels like crying but buries herself in work again. Maybe, one day, she will cry. Maybe, he will notice – but she doubts it. And she won't let him see her tears, anyway, not if she can help it.

Not ever.

* * *

**10 - Means to an end**

Her eyes burn.

Teresa clenches her teeth and buries her finger nails in the palms of her hand and forces herself to look into Jane's eyes. He is still talking, fiercely and angrily, but she already knows what he wants from her. Red John is a dark shadow in the back of his eyes. She swallows and prays her face is as impassive as it always is. How could she ever have believed he had meant it? There was no place in his life for her.

How could she have thought she meant more to man who immediately forgot about her whenever Red John came into the game.

* * *

**11 - Split Personality**

It's easy to think himself into Red John. Too easy, sometimes. Patrick wonders whether it's what made Teresa leave – if she didn't want to see him turn into another mass murderer who didn't care for the people left behind along the road. Or if she simply was fed up with him. He does not know. It does not matter, either, since she is gone already. He ignores the pain in his heart and the tiny part of his brain telling him he is afraid of himself, too. It's too late. Chase the monster long enough and you become a monster yourself. At least she left him before she could become one, before she could see what happened to him.

But, when he sees it clearly, she probably knew him well enough to know he'd rather lose her than lose Red John.

* * *

**12 - Presents**

Every single gift he ever made to her was designed to surprise her just a tad too much, was just a little bit too exaggerated and over-the-top to be meant seriously.

And while Lisbon liked them all quite a lot – who wouldn't dream of a pony, or a real emerald collier, or a new sofa – she was far happier when he gifted her with something else others seldom would ever see: with a pained smile that reached his eyes. _Actually_ reached his eyes. It was the one thing that told her his apology was honest.

It had yet to happen, though.

* * *

**13 - Magic**

He was supposed to do something at the Fundraiser, he was sure of it. It wasn't what Lisbon was supposed to do, that was quite clear. _She_ was supposed to entertain the people, talk to sponsors and generally behave well. _The people_, in turn, were supposed to take out their check books and write over a nice sum to the Bureau. So while he watched her talk and laugh and flirt he racked his brain about what exactly_ he_ was expected to do. But it slipped his mind, again and again, pushed aside by far more important things. _Damn. _This woman was messing with his head! The material of her dress was hugging her curves, the thin, silky material complementing her light skin and dark hair. The red stones that shone in her ear-rings only made his gaze drift down her neck to the curve of her bare shoulders, and her red lips made him swallow. She was… _stunning_, he guessed, and he was supposed to focus and… Yes, that was it. He was supposed to do magic.

Nevertheless, he found himself stunned into inaction by Teresa Lisbon. Magic of her own, and just like that.

* * *

**14 - Irony**

"Relax, Lisbon. Just lean back and relax."

Jane spoke with his eyes already closed, his head falling back onto the back of the couch both of them were currently occupying.

"Looks like we're going to spend the night here. There's no end to the snow. I'll be a gentleman and will let you use the bed, but for now, just relax, okay?"

He was the very image of relaxation, Teresa thought sarcastically, and not too un-annoyed. She had wanted to drive back to San Diego this evening, already had had plans for the weekend. Now, it seemed she was stuck here with Jane. She huffed, but her annoyance had almost faded entirely already. Instead, anger was starting to build up, mostly anger at herself, but not too little at Jane, too. For whatever reason he seemed to enjoy the situation right now.

And for a reason she just couldn't fathom, she was unable to _relax_ wish his arm thrown so casually over her side of the couch, right behind her.

* * *

**15 - Lockdown**

She's forced to do it.

Not that she likes doing it, but she's not being left any other choice.

The more Jane reads into her, the more she closes down, trying harder and harder to shut him out. He still tries to break down her walls, barges through every crack he locates and she forgets. And Teresa Lisbon is getting really, really good at lying to him. She wonders, sometimes.

Does he realize how much he changes her?

* * *

**16 - Blunt Objects**

A blast from the past is supposed to feel differently, he thinks.

Not that hard. Not that painful. But in the darkness in front of his closed eyes floats her face, and his mind remembers: her expression when they met first, distrusting and suspicious. Her face when he told her he had no place to stay, her face when she lost Bosco, her face when she watched her team work and bicker and smile, her face when he saw her again after he shot the fake Red John, her face when she smiled, her face when she laughed. Her face, again and again, when she was sad, tired, lonely, angry, worried. Four years since he had seen her last, and suddenly there she was again, and it was as if no time had passed at all.

Her face as she looked down at him was guilty.

Who would have thought a candle – even if thrown with full force – could have just _such_ an impact?

(Perhaps he shouldn't have tried to surprise her.)

* * *

**17 - Consequences**

There.

He had gone and done it again. Scratching his head, and, for once, absolutely unsure of what to do, Patrick Jane regarded the scene in front of him.

Once again, his actions – or, more specific, his words – had started a commotion. Or, as Lisbon would call it: a brawl.

Patrick carefully extracted himself from the scene, wincing as one of the participants in his close environment went down shrieking like a Banshee, and then he slipped out of the room and closed the door. The screams were still audible outside of the room, he noticed.

He had started a brawl in a kinder garden. Lisbon wouldn't be happy about this. Absolutely not.

* * *

**18 - Voices**

Because Teresa is beautiful even when she glares at him like that, he wants to kiss her. Sometimes, it makes her glares even stronger when he tries. But sometimes, she smiles, and it is worth everything.

The tiny voice in the back of his mind that speaks with the voice of his daughter remains silent. It hasn't cried out for him for a long time now.

* * *

**19 - Certain amounts of closeness**

"That's not true, he..."

Jane stops in the middle of his own sentence because he finally realizes what it is he is seeing in the face of the woman before him. Oh God, that _woman_. She wasn't angry at him, wasn't angry at Rigsby and Grace. And she was angry with _herself _alright, but not for the reason he had first thought. She was angry they were drifting apart, were slowly separating into two broken, shattered pieces. She was angry that she hadn't been able to help Cho out more than she already had. She was angry at herself because she had done her job and she wasn't going to let herself get away that easily… That was Teresa Lisbon for you.

Affectionately, and a bit surprised at the fact that sometimes he could still surprise him like that, Jane threw an arm around her shoulders.

"Case Closed Pizza?"

"Get your arm off me."

* * *

**20 - Love**

So many tears.

So much blood, and so much pain, and so many sleepless nights. So many people left behind. When Patrick Jane thinks about what love has brought upon people, he feels sick. Because he only has to look into the mirror, and really, the sight isn't the prettiest one. He does self-hatred alright, it's is his second name. But when he sees Teresa Lisbon he desperately wishes nothing might ever happen to her. She has to be okay, especially because he won't ever be. Actually, when he sees Teresa Lisbon, he thinks that he'll do anything – _anything_ – to fight for whatever they have now, as strange and unfamiliar and unyielding it might be.

In his own way, he loves her.

* * *

**21 - Woman**

"Woman, you don't know what you're asking for."

"I do know very well," Lisbon replies acidly and the FBI man backs down ever-so-slightly. "And you'd better find your boss to hide behind him because this is a homicide investigation led by the CBI and I won't let you play your little power games. This is too important. You won't jeopardize it like this."

And off she goes. Patrick Jane throws the man a pitying look – and there is more, this time – and follows Lisbon. She's already looking down on the frail bodies of two High School girls. Two coroners (_yes, two) _are squabbling over the evidence. Jane watches the exchange and smirks. Lisbon is pushier than normal and he knows the reason.

He agrees with her. He is the only one who is allowed to call her _woman._

* * *

**22 - Leverage**

As much as he despises the fact, he has to give Senior Agent Madeline Hightower credit for one thing: she got him.

And she got him the only way that was possible. Of course it wouldn't stop him from his routine, but the thought of the consequences had his stomach churning uncomfortably. For once, he wasn't sure whether he would be able to weasel out of it as effortless as usual.

She wouldn't fire Lisbon. Or would she?

Meh.

* * *

**23 - Kinship**

"Your wife and child were _murdered_, too!"

Glazed eyes stare at him feverishly, madly. Dirty, bloody _(oh God, and whose blood it is) _hands grab at him, struggle to take hold on Patrick Jane's white collar. He feels sick, suddenly. Sick and terribly empty. He refuses to look down onto the floor, into the corner of the room in which a fragile body is crumbled, shattered and bloody. Dark hair is an almost shockingly stark contrast to pale-white skin. _God, all the blood. _

"You know how I feel! You want to kill him, too, you want to hunt down Red John and get revenge for your family. You dream of killing him, too, in cold blood, you want to do it yourself, I know you do! We're the same!"

Patrick swallows against the lump in my throat, the emptiness so heavy it threatens to drown him. _Teresa. Teresa._ Oh God, let her be alright.

"No," he says, quiet and bitter. "No," he repeats, and he never felt older before. "I don't want revenge anymore."

He speaks the truth; he knows it with all his heart. He just wishes she heard him, too, but nothing matters as long as she will be fine again.

Nine minutes turn out to be longer than a lifetime.

* * *

**24 - Imagine**

For a reason she cannot fathom – just cannot wrap her head around – it breaks her heart every time she sees him with a child. He's _good_ with children. She can see the way he was with his daughter: a caring father, a protective dad, someone who would do anything for his child. Probably he would not let his daughter date until the age of twenty.

If at all.

And his daughter would hate him, but she would love him, too. For a reason she cannot understand it hurts thinking about it – hurts so much – she cannot even watch. She feels sick.

Teresa turns away and closes her eyes.

* * *

**25 - Disturbance**

"God, Jane." Lisbon rolled her eyes in desperation. Her whole body was strung tight with tension, radiated stress and annoyance. "Just stop staring and go after her."

"Why should I?" He shot back nonchalantly, not half as sure as he probably seemed. Lisbon didn't buy it. It was a side-effect of their partnership which he didn't like – but which, on days, did not feel too bad. He was slowly losing it again, wasn't he?

"Because you want to ask her out on a date. Do us both a favor and ask her now."

"How would I do you a favor by asking her out? Always considering of course," he added, "That I actually do have the intention of doing so."

"Of course," Lisbon replied, her irony biting, her gaze not straying from the paperwork before her. "It would mean you would leave right now. And this, in return, would leave _me_ to do _my_ work and _I_ could finish before nightfall. You see? Both of us profit."

"I assure you, Teresa." His deliberate use of her first name was disconcerting. He watched her flinch. "I had no intention of asking her out."

What a blatant lie. From the way her eyes narrowed, he knew she knew.

"But if my presence is a nuisance to you, I will remove myself immediately. Have a nice evening."

He left her office very, very slowly but she didn't call him back. Okay, so he _would_ ask her. He'd have done it anyway, he reasoned. To be honest: he was insulted that she did not seem to mind. Like, not at all.

In her office, Teresa Lisbon sighed and forced herself to concentrate.

* * *

**26 - Memory Palace**

He looks at every face.

At every single beautiful, porcelain-white doll face. Blond, brown, black, red, green eyes and brown eyes and blue-grey. Young and old, woman or man. At every bloodied and limp body, every ugly contortion, every open wound and every grimace, frozen for eternity. Dead eyes. Dead people.

And the unforgiving, taunting, faceless face of Red John's haunts him in his dreams.

Every face, he burns into his memory where it joins the ones of his own wife and child. He carries them with him wherever he goes, a punishment that will never be enough to excuse the fact that he is alive and they are not. _He is alive and they are not. _

In most of his nightmares, Teresa Lisbon's face is added to the collection of ghosts.

_You grew too close, Jane._

* * *

**27 - Black and White**

Teresa Lisbon always knows when Jane lies.

She might not accept it as a lie, but deep down, she _knows. _She never tells him, and he loves her for it. She never questions him further, either, at least not as long as it's not connected with a case. And even in those cases she knows it is no good asking him, she knows she'd rather be able to watch the world fall to pieces before Patrick Jane will reveal his mind to her. Sometimes she hates him for it, and he hates her for it, too. She just accepts him like that when she shouldn't. He wants her to poke deeper, to keep prodding and pestering away at him until… He knows he won't break. He knows she knows he knows. It is a game they play, twisted and bitter and hurtful and sometimes, perhaps, but only sometimes, exhilarating.

The fact that she continues playing with him even though both of them are hurting tells him far too much.

* * *

**28 - Broken**

"It's okay," he tells her, his voice soothing and calm. His hand cups her cheek. It's new – the touching, the feeling, the wounded look in his eyes when he looks at her and sees her suspicion. Everything is different now, alien. Almost terrifying. It takes her breath away it is so unreal. But his hand is warm, and he _looks at her. _

Teresa smiles – a brittle, tiny smile, because she does not know what to say and how to act. She does not know what to feel and think.

There is no smile on his face but his eyes – for the first time since she can remember – are clear and serious and open. Honest and grey, and he _looks at her_ and sees her. She learned to keep her distance and now he is breaking down her walls with a bulldozer when he only ever used to break down her authority.

"It's okay," Jane repeats. "It's okay to be a little broken."

* * *

**29 - Weights**

Jane could still hear Danny's voice.

"Patrick Jane never gets into something all over his head."

Never. Only that he was in it suddenly, all over his head. There was no escape, no safe exit, he was into it so deeply there was no chance of him untangling himself from it ever again. And while a tiny part in his brain screamed for him to run and sever all the bonds he had formed that held him there he did not move. He'd gotten too close, he'd known it already. There was no way of making it undone.

This would have consequences.

He wasn't yet sure of which kind they would be. Personal, professional – what they would entail and how much it would affect him he was unable to predict, he, who had been able to steer clear towards the goal he had set himself. Now it suddenly seemed impossible. He'd started caring too much.

It hurt terribly. Still, he wrapped his arms around Lisbon's unconscious form and clenched his teeth. She felt fragile, almost weightless, her chest raising and falling just barely. He could only hope they'd get out of this unscathed, that Rigsby and Cho would be there on time.

Looking at her pained expression, he wondered how on earth this could have happened.

* * *

**30 - Blindness**

"She's gone."

Jane stares right past her unseeingly and Lisbon _feels_ the pain and guilt radiate from his entire body. Kristina Frey is dead, gone, her lifeless body and empty eyes nothing more than a lifeless shell of a person. Jane seems like one, too. And for some reason Lisbon cannot forget the way he placed his hands on the woman's hands.

Rarely does he touch other people, and even less he touches someone like that. He seems all the more broken for exactly that reason.

_I am here,_ her mind screams while her heart breaks once again for him. Or for her, perhaps? _I am here. You're not alone, Jane. Look at me. _Of course, he didn't. Feeling brittle like glass, she lifts herself up from his sofa and follows him from the bullpen, but she already knows he won't talk to her.

_Touch me._

She just wants him to show her he is real, but he never sees her.

* * *

**31 - Smile**

He makes her smile.

Jane makes Teresa smile when she does not want to. He just boasts about his abilities and his intelligence with his usual vigor (how much of it is played, how well she knows) as he follows her down the corridor and his horrible, horrible self-assurance and self-righteousness which normally make her seethe just make her smile on other days.

"Lisbon? Hey, Lisbon, are you smiling?"

Jane grabs her arm but she shakes him off and continues without facing him, pretending to be annoyed. The closeness is dangerous. She makes sure to keep her back between Jane and her smile, like it is a secret she has to protect from him lest he discovers it and uses it against her. Because she is so damn, damn happy he is back. And so glad he isn't depressed – or, at least, does not seem too depressed anymore – and, on the inside, she feels warm and always a tiny little bit exasperated.

Just for the protocol.

* * *

**32 - Apology**

"Mrs. London?"

"Yes?"

The woman looks old. And sad, and tired. She looks like she just lost her son, daughter-in-law and two grand-children and then someone came and abused her as a bait, taunting her, playing her and mocking her in her grief. Which she has – she just lost her family – and someone did use her, heavily. Jane, of course. Sometimes, while watching her consultant manipulate and play people like a piano, Lisbon wonders whether he would use her like that, as well. Whether he already is doing so. Then she remembers why she is there.

"I am sincerely sorry."

The woman does not seem surprised while Lisbon's brows shoot up into her hairline. Mrs. London smiles a tired smile.

"I know."

Patrick Jane gives her a last look and then takes his leave. Obviously, enough has been said. Lisbon turns back to the old lady and some of her surprise must have shown on her face because the woman adds: "It must be hard, working with him."

After a last few pleasantries, Lisbon leaves as well. "Take care, Mrs. London."

_Patrick Jane apologized. _Her head is fuzzy for the entire ride back. He actually apologized. But not to her. Never to her. Never sincerely. There was another layer to the old woman's words, and Teresa was afraid she'd understood.

* * *

**33 - Footfall**

Her step is not like a woman's.

It is self-confident, shows all the ignorance Teresa Lisbon displays towards what makes minds judge. She does not care for traditions or roles. Her steps are not feminine, not slow, not carefully calculated. Her gait is not alluring or swaying but functional and calm. And yet there is something oddly intriguing in the way she moves.

She walks like she has to show the world she does not care. It is something she picked up in her youth, most likely because of her family and the way she lived, the way she was taught to believe. Patrick can see her tagging around behind a tall man, each of his steps forcing her to make three, her brothers running around them in circles while she tries to keep them in check. And still she never hung behind, always was right there when her father turned around or her brothers came crying with a bruised face or a scraped knee or even worse. She was there, always, every time, even if it meant she had to be running to be there. Teresa Lisbon walks like a man: broad shoulders, fast gait, confident and in big steps that do not seem to fit her small posture at all.

It's not feminine or alluring, not at all. Patrick finds himself staring at her back and her front, and wonders how it is he still cannot look away.

* * *

**34 - one and a half minutes**

"You. Are. Late."

"Good Evening to you, too, Lisbon. Isn't she sight wonderful?"

"I _told_ you to be on time. Jane, this is important."

"Aww, come on. I'm only one minute late. Max."

"Jane – you know what? I don't care about how late exactly you are. What matters is that I specifically _asked_ you to be on time, and…"

"People ask me many things."

"Oh, so now I'm _people_?"

"Teresa, one and a half minutes. Really, it wasn't my fault entirely."

"How comes one and a half minutes now? I…"

He kissed her. He couldn't help himself – she looked adorable when she was upset, and the dress hugging her curves did nothing to put him off. And he loved how she sighed into the kiss and leaned against him. When he leaned back her eyes were hooded and her cheeks flushed, and she glared at him. Patrick loved the effect he had on her.

"You are beautiful when you're angry."

She glared at him suspiciously for another few seconds, then the anger faded away into a brilliant half-smile.

"That was your extra half minute, right?"

Chuckling, he shrugged. "Like I said, entirely not my fault. Okay, let's go."

"Wait." She tugged at his arm. This time, she kissed him – sweet, hot lips and soft scent and strong arms wrapped around his neck – and whatever was waiting for them below the floor of his attic office could wait another one and a half minutes longer, he thought.

* * *

**35 - Trampling**

She hates it – hates it hates it _hates it_ – when he gets like that.

She's just trying to help. If it was for her he wouldn't be there, wouldn't have to go through all this. He wouldn't be here to be stared at, whispered over, glared at. And she desperately wants to do something and everything to help him. Her pulse is racing because she knows how much he suffers and she wants this torture to end. She would give everything for it. But he stares at her coolly and answers her worry with sarcasm and Teresa hates it so much she wants to scream. Or cry.

He's trampling all over her. She should really have gotten used to it by now.

* * *

**36 - Driver**

Teresa Lisbon is careful about cars.

She has every reason to, too. Her mother died in a car accident, run over by a drunk driver. Twelve years old, alone and suddenly in charge of holding her family together, there is little wonder her nightmares were haunted by speeding cars and midnight crashes. Even now, years later, she still drives with the same concentration she applies to her work. And, although she never would have confessed it, she still gets tense to the point of muscle cramps whenever she drives. It is less the fear of getting hurt but the desperate wish that _nobody_ should ever experience what she has gone through.

_(At least, if she dies, not many people will mourn except for her family.)_

Teresa never drove faster than the day Patrick Jahe was taken hostage by Madelaine Hightower.

* * *

**37 - Lies**

Lies, lies, nothing but lies.

He lies to Bertram, he lies to LaRoche. _She will come. I will tell your secret. _He lies to Grace – _Everything will be alright_ – and he lies to himself. Some people would say it was his greatest sin. Self-deception – not a vice, but not a virtue, either. _Illusions, nothing more_. He wants to make himself believe that he will be able to go on after he killed Red John. He tells himself that with their murderer's death, Angela and Charlotte will rest in peace. He will rest then, too. He even promises himself to go on after his duty is fulfilled. But they are all great lies, lies and more lies and he feels dead on the inside. He _is_ dead. There is nothing to go on for, nothing to live for except for his revenge. Therefore, lying to himself doesn't matter at all because it is not like there is a truth waiting for him somewhere.

But he stops breathing when he hears the dull shot and Lisbon's cry and harsh, ragged breathing. She tells him she'll be fine and he believes her and hates himself for it. He orders her to get O'Laughlin's phone and hears her strained breathing – she clearly is in pain – and this is worse than anything he ever felt since he walked into his bedroom with the bloody smile on the walls. So he breaks down his sorrow and pain and fear and focuses. Every emotion shatters until there is nothing left to feel.

He still feels nothing when he kills Red John.

* * *

**38 - Masks**

"You know, Jane, I…"

Lisbon's voice trails off. Normally, Patrick Jane wouldn't bother, but something in the way she stares off into the distance makes him glance up wearily. Her shoulders are tense in a… _fascinating_ way. Although she does not look at him he gets the feeling she is.

"What?"

"Hmm?"

She shakes herself visibly and gives him a small smile. "Oh, nothing. Just thinking."

"What are you thinking about?"

"I really like it."

"What?"

"This."

And somehow he feels like he is intruding on a private moment of hers, more private than normally, even. Her smile is different, more open and more vulnerable, than the ones he knows from her. He does not ask her to specify, not this time.

Teresa watches him go back to read and thinks she really, really likes seeing his real self, even if it is only a glimpse behind the mask he is wearing every day. The way he sits on her sofa – as if he belongs into the room – makes her feel inexplicably tender towards him.


End file.
